Do you have a document that needs to be reviewed and approved? Do you want to assign documents to people to add content, publish, or validate content? Egnyte Review and Approval workflows help you to do this in a structured and repeatable way, with audit reporting to cover all the steps along the way.
Depending on your Egnyte plan, your access to these features may be limited. Platform Team and Business plans are limited to single-step workflows, while Platform Enterprise Lite and Enterprise plans can create multi-step workflows. A number of the capabilities described below are specific to the Life Sciences GxP plan - those features are indicated with a Life Sciences GxP badge.
Creating a Workflow
To create a new workflow on a file, follow the steps below:
- Open the file preview and select the Workflows tab in the upper-right.
- Click New Workflow. If you have an Egnyte plan with multi-step workflow enabled, click New Workflow and then Custom Workflow.
- Life Sciences GxP You can optionally add a reason for change. This field allows you to explain to all the workflow assignees why a new document is being created or an existing document is being updated.
- Choose one of the following step types:
Step Type
Description
To Do Creates tasks for assignees asking them to do something, e.g., add content to the document, add metadata, submit the document, etc. After assignees are done, they mark the task as complete. Review Creates tasks for assignees asking them to review the document and provide feedback. Once an assignee is comfortable with the content, they mark the task as reviewed. Approval Creates tasks for assignees asking them to either approve or reject the document.
Life Sciences GxP Life Sciences plans with 21 CFR Part 11 compliant workflows provide an additional option to require a digital signature from approvers.
- Once you choose the step workflow type, you'll be prompted to add the properties for the step.
- Enter a task name and optionally a description.
- Choose the assignees. You can pick up to twenty assignees. You can also search and select user group(s) in the Assignee(s) field. If you select a user group, all its members will be added. By default, all assignees will need to perform the step before the workflow is completed or before it moves to the next step (in case of multistep workflows).
- When you add two or more assignees to a workflow step, the system provides the following two options. Choose one of the two options to define the number of assignees required to complete a task.
- All the assignees need to take action: This is a default selection that requires all the assignees to take action on their tasks.
- Option to specify the number of assignees needed to take action: This option allows you to define a specific number of user(s) required to complete the task.
- Choose a due date. The due date can be any time from the current day until 90 days in the future. The maximum length for any workflow is 90 days.
- Depending on your Egnyte plan, you have the option of adding more steps by clicking Add next step. The workflow will automatically move to the next step once all of the assignees finish the prior step. You can create up to ten steps in a workflow.
- You can navigate to the Task Reminders tab to change the default selections and frequency of task reminders. You can skip this step if you would like to use the default selection. Task reminders are email notifications sent to assignees to remind them of pending or overdue tasks.
- Click Create to start the workflow.
- Assignees will get an email notification telling them they have a new assignment.
Editing A Workflow
You can edit an in-progress workflow by clicking Edit from the three dot menu located on the right side of the workflow pane.
You can change any workflow parameters for the step that has not started yet. You can make the following changes for in-progress steps:
- Add or remove the assignees who haven’t completed their task
- Change the task due date of incomplete task(s)
- Update task reminders for incomplete task(s)
- Modify the number of assignees required to complete the step
You can optionally add a reason for workflow edit which is available in the Workflow audit report along with all the changes made to the workflow.
Completing Workflow Tasks
Assignees will be notified of new task assignments via email and can also see all of their assignments in Tasks Assigned to Me. You can also access a task by navigating to a file and opening the Workflows tab in the upper-right.
Assignees can complete their workflow tasks on Egnyte Mobile apps. To learn about how to complete the workflow task on Egnyte IOS app, refer to this article, and for Android app, refer to this article.
A user can complete a task on a workflow if they are one of the assignees and if their step is listed as In Progress. Depending on the step type, the way that you complete the task is slightly different:
|
Jira Link |
Completing the Task |
| To Do | Click the purple Complete button and confirm it in the dialog. |
| Review | Click the purple Mark Reviewed button and confirm it in the dialog. |
| Approval |
Approval tasks have two options to complete their step, clicking Approve or clicking Reject. Then, confirm the action in the dialog. Rejecting the task will cancel the entire workflow, so be careful in choosing this option. Life Sciences GxP If a digital signature is required for approval, a signature screen will be shown asking you to enter your username, password, and a reason for approving the document. If you login to Egnyte via an SSO provider, you will need to set up a Non-SSO Password on the My Preferences screen. |
The system will automatically lock files while they are in an Approval step. All assignees of Approval steps for a workflow must approve the same version of the document.
Required number of assignees must complete their tasks for a step before the step is considered complete. When the required number of assignees have finished the step, the workflow will transition to the next step. If there are no additional steps, the workflow will be marked as Completed.
If a completed workflow has an approval step, you'll have the option to download the approved version of the document.
Life Sciences GxP For documents with a signature, the download will be a PDF rendition that includes a signature page at the end.
View Your Tasks and Created Workflows
You can access a list of all the tasks assigned to you or the workflows you've created by opening the Tasks and Workflows in the left navigation bar.
Tasks Assigned To Me
The Tasks assigned to me tab shows a list of tasks assigned to you, the current user. By default, it displays in-progress tasks but you can filter the tasks list based on the following filters:
- Assigned by, the user who assigned the task
- The task status
- The task type
Clicking the file's name in the Task column will open the file preview and bring you to the appropriate workflow in the Workflows tab.
You can view the reason for a task cancellation by hovering over to the task with a canceled status.
Workflows I Created
The Workflows I created tab shows workflows created by the current user.
Workflow creators can expand a workflow by clicking the caret to the left of the file type icon. Expanded workflows show the workflow steps, assignees, and status.
Clicking the file's name in the File column will open the file's preview and bring you to the appropriate workflow in the Workflows tab.
Workflow creators can edit or cancel an ongoing workflow by clicking the three dots menu available on the right side of a workflow.
You can view the reason for a task cancellation by hovering over an individual assignee’s task with a canceled status.
Audit
For plans supporting Audit Reporting, a Workflow Audit report is available, which captures all details about workflow, including user actions (e.g., creating a workflow, editing a workflow, completing a task) and automated system actions (e.g., completing a step, starting a new step).
Life Sciences 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance
Life Sciences GxP Life Sciences GxP plans with Workflows contain the following functionality that provides compliance with 21 CFR Part 11:
|
Capability |
Description |
| Digital Signature | Approvals support digital signatures which capture the user's username, password, and a reason for approval. The system stores a cryptographic digital signature to validate the integrity of the signature. |
| Human Readable Rendition | The system can generate a rendition of approved documents that include a signature page with a list of signors with their first and last name, signature date and time, and approval reason. |
| Approved Document Retention |
Approved documents are retained forever, preventing users from purging the data from the system. Workflows and digital signature records are also permanently retained and cannot be deleted. |
| Reviewer and Approver Authorization | Reviewers and Approvers must belong to specified groups. This ensures that only authorized users can approve regulated documents. The default groups for authorization are WorkflowReviewers and WorkflowApprovers. |
| Full Audit Coverage |
All actions taken as part of a workflow are tracked in the Workflow audit report. |
Limitations
The following is a summary of the limitations of Review & Workflow:
- Maximum steps per workflow: 10
- Maximum assignees per step: 20
- Maximum workflow duration: 90 days. The system will automatically cancel workflows exceeding 90 days.
Learn more about Review and Approval Workflows by watching a Quick Tip on Egnyte University: Review and Approval Workflows